Configurator is a tool that allows editing OSGi configurations in a user-friendly manner.

Note: As of Exadel Authoring Kit 2.7.0, Configurator is an experimental feature. You need to specially enable it through your own AEM project by adding a configuration file like the following:

Path: ui.config/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/your_app/osgiconfig/config/com.exadel.aem.toolkit.core.configurator.services.ConfigChangeListener.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jcr:root
    xmlns:sling="http://sling.apache.org/jcr/sling/1.0"
    xmlns:jcr="http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0"
    jcr:primaryType="sling:OsgiConfig"
    enabled="{Boolean}true"
/>

To edit a configuration, navigate to http://:4502/etoolbox/config.html/, e.g. http://localhost:4502/etoolbox/config.html/com.adobe.cq.wcm.core.components.internal.form.FormHandlerImpl. View and edit the configuration as necessary, then press Save. The new config will be applied immediately (the corresponding OSGi component restarts if necessary). Additionally, the config will be stored under /conf/etoolbox/authoring-kit/configurator while the config that existed before saving will be preserved for backup.

Now, even after the AEM instance is restarted or recreated (as it goes with AEMaaCS instances), the Toolkit will re-read the stored config from the resource under /conf/etoolbox/authoring-kit and re-apply it.

However, if you press the Reset button, the stored config will be erased and the backup config will be reinstalled.

Publishing and unpublishing configs

If you are satisfied with the change of an OSGi config in an author instance, you can populate it to the publishers by pressing the "Publish" button. It will replicate the config asynchronously. Press "Unpublish" to reset the config on the publishers. You will then be offered to reset it on the author as well.

Cleaning up configs no longer needed

A common development pattern is to allow editing a config online for the sake of immediate changes, but then "transfer" it to the code base. In this case, it makes sense to tell the Configurator to clean up a config stored under /conf/etoolbox/authoring-kit immediately as it sees it and not apply, since the same config is now declared elsewhere in the code. You can do it by setting the property cleanUp in the com.exadel.aem.toolkit.core.configurator.services.ConfigChangeListener.xml next to the enabled property. The value of cleanUp is an array of configuration PIDs that you want the Configurator to clean up on sight.

Access management

By default, the Configurator is available to users who have the privilege to read and write data under /conf/etoolbox/authoring-kit/configurator. Usually those are the members of the administrators group. You can loosen this restriction manually. Else, you can grant access to a particular configuration (PID) by specifying it on the node level. A good idea is to provision a "permanent" PID-specific node under /conf/etoolbox/authoring-kit/configurator regardless of whether there is currently a custom config for this PID or not. This can be done, e.g., via an Apache Sling Repository Initializer script:

In this script, we first provision the node structure that would appear if/when someone saves a custom config for com.acme.service.impl.MyServiceImpl. Then we assign privileges for the user noadmin. The jcr:read and rep:write privileges on the PID-specific node allow reading and saving a custom config for this PID. They are necessary to make config editing work for the user. The crx:replicate privilege is optional. It allows publishing and unpublishing the config.